Call The Tune and Pay The Piper
by M.Wilkinson

     Charlotte lay among the pillows, a white sheet pulled up to her throat. A few silver hairs visible in the dark curls that surrounded her pink face. Her son Ryan gazed down at her.

     ‘I’m not well,’ she said weakly.

     Naked to the waist, he clasped a creased shirt in his over-large hand. ‘I take it I haven’t a clean shirt for school then?’

     ‘You’ll have to wear yesterday's.’

     ‘I’ve already worn yesterday's three times.’

     She gave a low moan, flopped her hand out from under the bedclothes and waggled her legs in order to sit up. ‘I’d better get up and iron one, although I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stand for long.’

     Ryan at sixteen had heard his mother whine for most of his life. The mere whisper of a virus travelling through the neighbourhood and she was stricken. She picked up symptoms like a chicken pecking grain.

     Her husband David accepted she was a hypochondriac. He’d lived with her pill taking and frequent complaints for twenty years and regarded every new illness with stoicism. He’d taken a mistress eight years into his marriage and when he wasn’t wrapped up in her, he was wrapped up in his job as an electrician. He did his best to keep the house tidy during Charlotte’s episodes of incapacity, although even that was difficult. It seemed she took it as a personal affront that her family could manage without her.

     Ryan hadn’t a girlfriend to keep his mind occupied. His mother’s feigned illness irritated him into a flare of anger. He stomped downstairs.

     ‘I can iron a bloody shirt myself.’

     Her weak wail followed him into the kitchen. ‘I’ll soon be dead, then you and dad can do everything yourselves. You don’t need me, I’m just a burden.’

     Ryan clenched his teeth and hissed below his breath. ‘No. You’re a fat arsed lazy cow.’

***

     A poor appetite and a few vague pains in her stomach urged Charlotte to seek advice. Her doctor of many years gave a resigned sigh and sent her to hospital for tests. From past experience he’d discovered, unless he wanted her cluttering up the surgery every day, it was the easiest way out.

     Two weeks later Charlotte returned from the surgery with the results. Two bright spots of colour rode high on her cheekbones and her eyes sparkled.

     David poked a steak sizzling in the frying pan, then turned towards her, a fork poised between his fingers. ‘Good news, I take it?’

     Ryan lifted his eyes from the homework spread across the table. ‘What else? It’s always good news.’

     ‘Ah-ha, you’re wrong!’ Charlotte said. She pulled off her woolly cap and unbuttoned her size sixteen coat. ‘I’ve got to go back for more tests – I think they found something unusual.’

     Ryan leaned back on the kitchen chair and flicked his pencil with his thumbnail. ‘Foot and Mouth?’

     Fat spat angrily in the pan and David jumped back. ‘Shit, I’ve just changed my shirt.’

     ‘Going out again, Dad?’

     Ryan gave a sly grin. He knew his father had a mistress. He’d bumped into them, as they strolled out of a restaurant. She’d been laughing, hanging on his father’s arm. They all stared at each other in silence, and then Ryan winked and turned away. Good for you, Dad. I don't blame you, something to get you out of the house. Neither Ryan nor David referred to the incident after it happened.

     David slid the pan off the flames. ‘Clear that stuff off the table, Ryan, dinner’s almost ready.’ He reached for the salad bowl. ‘I don’t suppose you want anything, Charlotte?’

     Charlotte’s eyebrows pulled down into a deep vee. ‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? They found something unusual.’

     ‘Horse and cart, grand piano?’ Ryan picked up his schoolbooks and put them on a nearby chair.

     Charlotte burst into tears. ‘You don’t care. You’ll be sorry when…’

     ‘When you’re dead,’ Ryan finished.

     She flung the kitchen door open. Her heels drummed an angry tattoo as she ran upstairs and the house lapsed into silence as the bedroom door slammed shut.

     ‘You shouldn’t tease your mother like that,’ David said as he forked a steak onto Ryan’s plate.

     Ryan was in the hall when the letter announcing his mom's results, finally flopped on the mat. Charlotte was at the door, her face alight with expectation. She tore at it, fumbling in her haste. Her face dropped, the diagnosis was a slight vitamin deficiency. She clenched the letter in her fists and threw at the wall. ‘They’re wrong – wrong – I’m ill.’

***

     Ryan sat close to the bedside holding Charlotte’s almost fleshless hand. It was as if the letter she’d received from the hospital had been a signal, and she'd slowly dissolved into a gaunt grey creature.

     He leaned forward and put his face close to her ear. ‘Mum, you must try and eat something..’ He reached for a glass of milk on the bedside table. ‘Just a sip, Mum, please.’

     With obvious effort Charlotte beckoned him closer. ‘I am very ill, aren’t I Ryan?

     He nodded. ‘Yes, mum.’

     ‘Tell me what I have, again. I like to hear the word.’

     ‘Anorexia, you have Anorexia.’

     ‘And I can die with that, can’t I?’ A smile of satisfaction settled on her face.

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